nexus_crossings | The Silence of the Storm

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event

The Silence of the Storm

Rations have been cut. Again. Everyone is on one bowl of watery soup a day. Sometimes with crackers, sometimes not. Most people are too tired and weak to do much more than sit around and talk, and nobody discourages them in the slightest. Work has to be rotated constantly as people weaken quickly, but the fires still need to burn, people still need to guard the cooks and rations, and the sick still need to be tended to. Soon the hardest job is keeping up morale while the big expedition comes back. All the gods and heavens of the multiverse help them if they don’t come back with supplies, and soon.

The boundaries have tightened to an almost suffocatingly small space. It doesn’t take much to imagine where they will be by the end of Winter, which at least makes planning a little easier. People are already relocating to deeper in the Plaza. Unfortunately it means that those who have enough energy to often end up fighting with their neighbours, as the close quarters tests everyone’s patience. There are a few spaces carved out for like minded people to shelter from the dreary situation. Mechanics and those like them have set up a nice little place close to the Crossroads Café, and a break area for those helping the sick is sheltered in a room behind the injured and ill. Zandros moves from groups to individuals, looking for help in creating some form of morale boosting display that will adhere to Isidor's instructions. People are surviving in whatever ways they can, but it's reaching breaking point.

((It's the Final Event Post, everyone! OOC Post is here! This is for those stuck at the hub while the Main Expedition is going on. There will be a second part to this post for the Return of the Expedition. In the meantime, have fun!))

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Danny was dimly aware of this guy the first time he showed up, but took no interest then. He wasn't all that hungry yet, by that point, new to the Nexus and more concerned with making friends than obtaining hot meals with suspicious origins.

Now, though, it strikes him as weird, maybe even ominous that the same goblin or whatever he is is hanging around with the same pitch.

"How is it you still have food?" he asks. "Are you not eating it yourself?"

Someone stopping to ask questions is the perfect potential customer. Drulb hops down from his small box and flashes him grin full of needles.

"Wouldn't be much of a salesman without anything to sell, would I?" He pats Danny's arm and ushers him closer. Closer to the meagre shelter of the canvas overhead, and closer to that rich, warm smell. "Come on in, tell me what you're lookin' for."

We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits...

Danny is visibly wary, but he comes closer, anyway. The smell makes his stomach hurt, mouth water, but he's trying to pretend he's not interested. "Sure, sure, but it's not like anyone's got much to buy with right now, either, do they?"

Maybe, maybe not. Some of the refugees certainly have cash or coin with them, and there aren't many places taking it. And then there are people looting the abandoned stores and homes, too. That's ugly.

"What kind of books do you have around?" He asks, like an idle window-shopper. We'll see how long that lasts in the face of temptation.

"Y' got two legs, two eyes, don'tcha?" Drulb points out with a snort.

Books, huh? Drulb squints at the young man, then leans closer and takes a deep, noisy sniff. There's magic there, clinging to his skin. Right. Books.

With a knowing, broad grin, Drulb clambers and hops expertly over boxes and crates until he finds a key. He returns and finds a locked chest, jostling it open to reveal it jam packed with books. Whoever put these away packed them with care. It takes a second for the magic of the Nexus translates the spines. Foreign names, mentions of tomes and secrets reveal themselves to Danny.

Drulb leans against the crate, looking proud as punch. "Elven drivel. Sounds like what you're lookin' for."

"...you're sayin' you take eyes and legs as payment?" Danny's young and a bit stupid, but he's still a sorcerer, and he has a good guess what's coming. "Didn't realize it was that kind of shop."

The goblin's got his number, though. He's not a bookworm, but he is ravenous for magical knowledge. Anything that can give him an edge.

He shouldn't have to make risky trades. Hermione already promised to help him, and he's got other potential magical contacts in Felix Caelus and Maxim Horvath. He's got the whole Nexus to learn from, if he can make it through until more seasonable weather. And yet his gaze lingers on the spines of those books.

"Might be," he admits quietly. "But I like my eyes and legs where they are. What other currency do you take?"

He leans his chin against his knuckles as he considers the young man. Wise enough to be wary and either wise or foolish enough to keep haggling as an option. "Memories, senses, colours, names, realities... If you value it, then it's got value."

"These are valuable," he says, patting the chest. "Each one's got stories and knowledge, memories and realities of their own. What're you willing to part with? Old knowledge for new? Maybe you don't need your nostalgia anymore. Maybe you got spells of your own to trade."

"But it's got to be valuable to me, doesn't it, to be valuable to you." That's almost not a question. "'Cos everyone's got memories they'd love to be rid of, but it doesn't work that way."

"I want a look in one of the books first. Five minutes. You can pick which one."

"Ain't valuable to me unless it's valuable to you," Drulb confirms with a grin. This kid knows the score, and that always makes things more interesting.

"A sneak peek, huh?" The goblin scratches his chin and looks over the collection. Eventually he picks out the thickest tome he can see and hands it over. There's no way the kid will get through that in five minutes, but he might be able to skim through the good bits. Drulb pulls out a shiny pocket watch and flicks it open. "Five minutes."

Five minutes with the careful journalling of an elven lord trying to uncover the secrets of a revered figure in his history. An elven lady whose mastery of magic was well known, but little understood. It's a book of polite, respectful fanboying between scholarly notation and youthful frustrations with practicalities.

The food cooking still smells like Heaven, but now Danny is more determined than before not to taste it. This isn't sorcerer's magic, this is something darker and wilder and Danny's smart enough to know how dumb he is when it comes to things like that. He wonders if anyone's taken Drulb up on the food and come back again and again, trading memories or the way they whistle or whatever, until there's not much left of the original person.

He reads through bits of the book fast, skimming enough to get a picture, and it's not specifically instructional, but it's really interesting. He wants it, and the others like it, but not enough to offer anything too vital. He hands it back when the time is up, without protest, and reminds himself he can walk away.

"Okay, gimme a sec, I'll make an offer, but can I just ask something first? I've always wondered for this kind of thing, if someone trades you something they've learned, can they ever learn it back or is it just poof forever no matter what? Like if someone offered you their knowledge of how to spell words with more than three syllables--that's not my offer, just an example--and you accepted, would they just be a shit speller forever or could they take classes and eventually they'd be able to spell 'superfluous' again?"

He's not just stalling, believe it or not. He really wants to know.

Drulb counts the five minutes to the second and takes the book back right after, setting it down with the rest. As he tucks away the watch, he chortles and shakes his head at Danny's question. Sure, he's asking the right kinds of questions, but it's crazy how humans think sometimes.

"It ain't a memory wipe, kid, it's a trade. You can get it back if you get it from someone else, but it ain't yours anymore."

"So if you trade memories, they don't necessarily go away, either, they're just not yours any more?" Okay, he knows a little about how this works, but clearly not enough. He's going to keep an eye on this goblin for a little while, if he can get away with it.

"I mean, I've read stuff, but I've never run into this kind of, uhm, opportunity before."

He still doesn't trust the food.

"You can't remember memories that aren't yours, but someone's got'em." He drums his fingers against the chest. "So you interested or just here to play twenty questions?"

"I mean...both?" Danny gives the goblin a cheeky grin. "Can't blame me for being curious, can you? We don't get goblin markets back where I come from anymore. Not since 1908, I think. At least not in the States."

But all right, he's not going to push his luck too far. "My mum had a lot of boyfriends, but only one that ever gave me the time of day. She was working on my ninth birthday and he took me to lunch and the zoo and then we rented movies and watched 'em until she came home. It was a favor to her, but it was good. That's my offer, the memory of that day."

He'll miss it. But he also won't be shocked if it's not accepted. It's an opening offer.

"If you ask anythin' else I'm gonna have to charge you for the answers." Although Drulb says it in good humour, it's not necessarily a joke.

The offer is a good start. This kid knows what to bargain, which means they can get into the thick of it. "One nice memory of some stranger for all these books? No chance." He scratches his chin thoughtfully. "How about one strong memory for each book, another for the chest, if you want it. How about... a memory about magic, eh?"

Danny's almost surprised he hasn't been charged already. "Fair enough," he says, but his grin lingers.

"He wasn't a stranger. He dated my mum for six months until he got transferred to Germany and they broke it off."

"And that's a lot of memories. I think you'd better throw in the chest for free if you're looking for memories about magic." He frowns. "I'm only an apprentice, you know. Not like I have a lot of knowledge I can afford to lose. But..."

He thinks a minute, because he has a lot of unpleasant memories of magic, but that doesn't make them less valuable to him. "My master used to take the shape of an owl. A barn owl. First time I saw him he was outside my window in the dead of night. I didn't sleep the whole night, because he was watching me."

It was a blend of fear and anticipation that kept him up, but the mental image of the barn owl peering in his window is so vivid it's almost tangible.

Drulb simply shrugs at Danny's protest. That sounds like a stranger to him. Anyone can pretend to be anyone for six months and then vanish. Still, he's not going to argue with his potential customer.

He waits for Danny to think and finally share his offer. It's Drulb's turn to think, then. "Those two memories for three books. How's that? Any more and you'll have to give me something else."

Danny's judgment about strangers might be a little skewed. He never had a father; his mother had boyfriends but never remarried, and six months was definitely on the longer end of the spectrum of her relationships. At least, it was while Danny was a kid. He hasn't seen her in a few years. For all he knows, she's remarried now. Maybe even with other kids.

That'd sting.

Anyway. He considers the counteroffer and eyes the spines of the books again. He could keep up his haggling, maybe get them all, but he's only got so much to offer. What happens if he accidentally bargains away something he really needs?

He's not prone to discretion, but in this instance, he's wary, and that's probably a good thing. "Yeah," he says. "I'm callin' it. Deal."

He offers his hand, meeting the goblins eyes so he looks less intimidated than he actually is.

Drulb grins a nasty, toothy grin, and tugs down his sleeve. Long fingers with untrimmed nails wrap around Danny's hand in an shake with a good grip. "Deal."

Whatever Danny offered Drulb, he won't be able to remember them anymore. Memories, but which ones? Hard to say. It's like he never had them.

"Three books, then," Drulb says as he releases Danny's hand and goes back to leaning on the open chest. "You're getting them at a steal, kid."

The clawlike nails almost change his mind. Danny's own fingers are remarkably well-manicured considering the weather around them, nails painted glossy black with silver glitter stripes on the third finger of each hand. When he does shake, though, his grip is strong.

In days to come, Danny will find his phobia of owls is gone. Why he thought they were so creepy, he can't quite recall.

He takes the book he was allowed to preview, then picks two others based on how interesting the titles look and clutches them to his chest. "Bet you say that to everyone," he tells Drulb archly. "What are the chances I'll see you around again?"

Of course he says that to most everyone, but it makes him grin to be caught out like that. No harm in making the customer feel special, after all. Every trader needs a little repeat business now and then to keep them ticking over.

"Eeh, business has been alright. I might show up again sometime. Between markets o' course. I'd say you'd like to see them alright. Don't doubt you'll appear in one some day, an' you'll find me then."

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The Silence of the Storm

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